After binge eating and drinking over the weekend I sometimes fancied the idea of getting a six pack and becoming an “Instagram fit chick”. For years I made the new years resolution to “get in shape”, which usually meant I replaced one meal a day with a salad and posted a few pictures with the caption “New Year new me”. I’d join the gym, not knowing what the hell I’m doing, and walk out because of embarrassment. Then if I accidentally ate a 12 inch Pizza for lunch one Tuesday, I would confidently write the entire week off with the statement “I’ll start next Monday”. But once the novelty wore off, and I realised pizza tasted a lot better than salad and/or shakes, I slowly but surely fell back to my old ways. By the time February came, I was already back to staying in bed all day eating nothing for breakfast, which then lead me to a binge eating party for one.

So why was this? I lacked motivation I guess. I didn’t want it badly enough, and nor did I have any support – which is an important aspect. However, now I realise there is only one right time to start taking care of your health… and that is right now.

I sometimes still struggle with my binge eating parties.. but I’m nowhere near as bad as I used to be, and starting Monday does not exist in my life anymore !!

People sometimes say to me “life is too short to eat healthily and go to the gym”. However, I believe that life is too short to spend it in an unhealthy body and skin we are not comfortable or confident in.

Remember that the longer you put it off, the harder it is the get started. So start now; not tomorrow.

The big problem here is that sugar disrupts the balance of your body’s natural control system.

Your brain continuously monitors the process of digestion. Every one of the hormones involved in digesting your food is involved in signalling to your brain that you are full.

& guess what ?! Sugar messes this up for us !! But what does this mean I hear you ask ??

Basically ⬇️

Sugar, particularly the fructose part, makes a complete mess of our satiety system. When our liver processes fructose it doesn’t trigger any of the hormones that signal satiety. So it never makes your brain feel that we are full !! Meaning we can eat and eat and eat !! I’d always wondered in the past why I could keep going on chocolate and biscuits without noticing.. anyone else?

Sugar can also have an impact on you not feeling full on your day to day meals. Yes it can get that bad !! This is serious guys !!

How to reset your fullness signal? ⬇️

1) Cut out snacks – Dont worry you’ll be able to eat them again just as soon as you have restored your natural control system. First, this will of course reduce your sugar intake, because so many snacks contain sugar. Secondly, it will allow your hunger to build naturally and slowly between meals.

2) Help yourself to good portions when you eat your meals, but wait 20 minutes before doing so, if you wished to have seconds. It can take upto 20 minutes for your stomach and brain to register whether you need anymore food.

3) Ensure you you exercise five days per week, for 30 minutes a day. This will reduce insulin resistance and hence restore satiety.

Let me know if this helps & if you wish to talk – feel free to contact me !! 👌

– Cut the avocado in half and carefully remove its stone, then scoop out the flesh into a bowl. Squeeze in the lemon juice then mash with a fork to your desired texture. Season to taste with sea salt, black pepper.

– Carefully slice the strawberries, and put aside, along with the mint leaves & raspberries.

– Toast your bread, then pile the avocado on top, along with placing your strawberries on top after that.

Intuitive eating is not just for those recovering from a restrictive eating disorder or disordered eating. Intuitive eating is also very much the way to freedom from binge eating disorder (or any degree of binge eating) and establishing peace with food and your body.

So, as you’re here, I am guessing you are a sufferer of a binge eating disorder, know of someone who is, or simply wants a better relationship with food, and requires help? — I gotcha —

I have suffered with binge eating since I was a little girl & I am still on the mend to battle it, however it’s nowhere near as much as it used to be & all thanks to intuitive eating! — I will discuss binge eating in further detail on another post.

The journey towards becoming an Intuitive Eater is not necessarily easy. I’m not going to tell you it’s super easy, and in no time you’ll lose weight and end up the happiest and healthiest you’ve ever been in your entire life. I wish we were all superheros, and everything was so simple, easy to accomplish and done in seconds, but I am afraid we’re not superheroes, and nothing worth having comes easy, got it?!

That’s just like the empty promises diets tell you, right?!— However it is totally possible to achieve a sense of freedom from food, regain positive energy from it all, and achieve your desired results without so much stress and guilt.

Intuitive eating is all about getting back to your roots and learning to trust your body again — I shall be touching on a few principles on that matter below.

1. Reject the Diet Mentality – Throw out those diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently — it’s all a load of nonsense! Been there & worn the t-shirt about ten times! This includes those calorie counting apps, that you then obsess about eating under 1200 calories per day, and hey what do you know, 2 weeks later your stuffing your face with chocolate cake! Yes I am talking about myself.

Just checking – I am not telling you to never use a healthy cook book when you fancy trying out a recipe that could be an alternative to the meal you have in mind, in fact I encourage this. I am also not telling you to never use the calorie counting app, just simply be careful how you use it.

2. Exercise – Feel the Difference – Forget exercising to simply punish yourself. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise – Working in the fitness industry I see & hear far too many people focusing on the calorie count, and the time spent on the treadmill. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for your favourite home workout programme, or hitting the snooze button on your alarm, and turning over back to sleep with those expert excuses you have made up over and over again in your mind for the past god knows how many years!

3. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food – Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, depression, boredom, anger, irritation are emotions we all experience throughout life & we have to learn to deal with them in a healthy way. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food coma, but food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating. All this becomes a vicious cycle, and I had been in this rut far too many times for my liking, can you agree?

Note – Sounds far too simple to work, as in my mind everything has to be complicated, but even phoning a friend to distract myself works, or engaging in more conversation with my partner over a coffee helps – or lets go all out and watch Harry Potter, that always makes me feel better! It’s all about changing your train of thought, and eventually the feeling of having to use food for your feelings will fade away with time.

4. Honor Your Hunger – Hunger is a normal, biological process. Your body needs to know, and to trust, that it consistently will have access to food. If you try to override feelings of hunger and don’t eat enough calories and carbohydrates, your body reacts with cravings and binges. Are there times when you feel hunger, but didn’t eat? How come?

5. Respect Your Body –We’re so quick to judge ourselves and criticize our bodies. Learning to respect your body for how it is at this moment is an important tenant of Intuitive Eating. If you are too critical of your body and don’t accept yourself as you are, it’s hard to reject the diet mentality.

Start practicing self love affirmations to yourself each & every single morning, when you find time to be alone. I used to do this a lot, and I still do from time to time. In fact I need to start doing it more often again, lets do it together!

6. Balance. Balance. Balance – Being healthy doesn’t mean eating perfectly. Consider how certain foods make you feel, in addition to how tasty and satisfying they are to you. One meal, one snack or one day of not eating correctly will not cause you to gain weight or have a health problem. It’s the consistency of what you eat over time – it’s not all or nothing. Please come to terms with this, and realise everything is good in moderation. I’m a huge believer on this.

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I hope this helps you understand a little more on intuitive eating, and how important it really is for our mind, body, & health. It really has helped me with my binge eating disorder, as I used to reach for the cupboards & fridge all day, every day! Hence why I got to the size I was.

I am always trying to see the positive in life, and be more positive as a person – but it is never by far easy! We’re only human, so we can’t be our best every single day, or can we?

I mean this girl has been through a lot, and I am still surprised of how well I am actually doing, and certain that I will continue in doing great! – If you want something as bad as you want to breath, you’ll soon achieve it! See that there? Positivity!

2018 hasn’t been the most tremendous of years with losing 4 loved ones in the space of four months, but I’ve been fighting that battle in my own way and gained more productivity in what I wish to do in life, and how I wish to be as a person. Still learning my way through here though yo!

More often than not, I find myself veering toward a positive attitude. (It’s something I never would have done years ago!) I firmly believe that this is because I’ve trained myself to be positive!

It doesn’t always come naturally for me, sometimes it’s a lot of work, but I’ve taken three steps that make it so much easier for me to see the good in life.

1 – Gratitude

One of the quickest ways to shift your focus away from negativity, judgment, and disappointment is to list the things in your life for which you are grateful. I know you’re probably thinking well durh?! – But actually this has really helped me.

You could simply take more walks, appreciate that beautiful flower you see along the way and be thankful you can have this opportunity. You could even start journaling and write 3 things that you are grateful for every single day, it could be as simple as having that damn good coffee in the morning! Or even give meditation ago! It works wonders – I’ve tried it!

2 – Believe a positive attitude is a choice

This step was hard to take at first. I thought that people were either positive or negative (and I was in the latter category). I used to blame my negativity on all kinds of outside forces like fate, parents, relationships, experiences — but never really stopped to think that I could actually choose to be positive!

Teaching myself that positivity is a choice has been one of the greatest things I’ve ever done for myself.

Now when I find myself in a bad situation, I know that it’s up to me to find the good, to be positive regardless of what’s happening around me. I no longer point fingers and place blame. I realize that everything happens how it happens, and it’s up to me to choose how I want to feel about it. I am in control of my attitude, and no one can take that away from me. That is a superpower my friend!

3 – Out with the negativity and in with the positivity

If you want to live a positive, & content life you cannot be surrounded by negative people who don’t encourage your happiness – simple.

As a negative person, I attracted negative people. When I decided to make the change to live a more positive life, I had to rid my life of the most negative influences in it. No one is perfect, and perfection isn’t the goal when it comes to positivity, however there were people in my life who were consistently negative when there was no need, who constantly brought me down, and I had to stop spending so much time with them.

This, as you can imagine, wasn’t easy. It can hurt to distance yourself from people, even when you know they aren’t good for you or your current lifestyle. Once you do make that move though, you realise how much better things can be.

In addition to removing negative influences from my life, I also had to get rid of some of my own negative behaviors, such as putting myself down all the time, never believing in myself, always being in the past, and alcohol abuse. I had to take a step back and examine which behaviors were good for me and which were not.

I learned to focus on the positive things I was doing, such as working on my blog and cultivating new, positive relationships, and let go of the negative ones. This process was not easy as I said and, to be honest, is still ongoing, but I know this: It’s hard to live a positive life when negative people and behaviors continually pull you down.

Quick Tip – I found it really helpful in reading self development books, and one of my favourites is ‘You are a Badass’ – You can find this on amazon.